Fodor kept going. “I thought to myself, if you’re lying about that, what else? Do I know anyone who’d send a liar to the Bahamas just to check on me? Then it hit me.” Fodor swiped at his phone. “I know a psychopath who’d hire someone to check up on me.” He flashed the screen again. Mike saw the image this time. Kieran Michelson’s face filled the screen.

Fodor pulled the phone back, read, “ ‘Too early to say, but Rep Repair in talks with an elite Hollywood private security firm.’ It’s got a picture of you and Spiderman, so you must be elite.”

Fucking Spiderman.

“So you’re gonna leave me out here to die?”

“To die? I’m not Kieran. Look behind you, man. That’s Florida. Two miles. You’ve got your luggage, your phone, all that stuff. Hell, John even slipped a bottle of sunscreen and a few granola bars in your bag.” He reached down, held up a silver oar with rubber paddles. “I’m gonna say my shit, then tie this to the end of the line. You pull it in, you can row to shore. You lose it, you’re close enough that the tide will take you in by sunset. I’m not the monster here.”

Mike eyed Bahamian John’s rifle. “Then what’s with the gun?”

“You try to follow us, John will put one through the rubber, and you’ll have to swim with the sharks.”

“Fine,” Mike said. “What’s the shit you have to say?”

“You tell Kieran this is the last run. I don’t want to hear from him or douchebag Dave ever again. As for the business, tell him to get my name off it. I’m out.”

Mike took a gamble. “Why don’t you tell Kieran yourself?”

“No way. I’ll talk to Nate; he can talk to Kieran. If he has a problem with that, remind him that I know things, man. You got it?”

Mike said he did.

Bahamian John climbed up to the captain’s deck. Fodor looped the line around the oar and raised Mike’s way out of Shit Creek. “You die, it’s on you.”

The catamaran’s engine roared to life, the oar dropped into the water. Mike grabbed the line, started pulling. By the time he held the oar, the Queen of the Waves was a dot on the horizon. He dipped the paddle in the water and aimed for America.

Chapter 44

CHAPTER

44

CAITLIN ANSWERED HER phone. “The Daily Student.”

Mary laughed. “I’m on the porch swing with a pitcher of sangria and you’re not here. Are you still out at the farm?”

“Oh Mary, the farm is so three-and-a-half hours ago. Also known as the last time I peed.”

She checked the rearview. The Bro-duce truck trailed half a mile back. She sped up to eighty. “I’m ten miles north of Bowling Green.”